


a goddamn blaze in the dark (and you started it)

by dollfacerobot



Series: ‘tis the damn season [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Also appear: Stark siblings, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Real World, Canonical Character Death, Cheating, Christmas, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Jon Snow is Not a Stark, Period Typical Attitudes, Sexual Content, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollfacerobot/pseuds/dollfacerobot
Summary: Years ago, the Baratheons forced Jon to leave the small coastal town the Starks grew up in. When he finally returns one Christmas, he finds Sansa married to another, but their feelings for each other remain unchanged.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Sansa Stark/Harrold Hardyng (established relationship)
Series: ‘tis the damn season [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072217
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	a goddamn blaze in the dark (and you started it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aflashofgreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflashofgreen/gifts).



> Dedicated to Jessica for the holidays. I wanted to write something inspired by _gold rush_ with more banter, but it ended up as this anxious mess instead. I hope you enjoy it regardless! I really loved writing it.
> 
> Many thanks to hilarychuff for beta-reading.
> 
> The title is from Taylor Swift’s song _ivy_.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The narrow road that led towards his hometown was frozen and almost entirely abandoned. With about an hour to go, the soft snowfall had turned into a storm, making it impossible to see ahead. Even before he passed the town sign, he heard the seagulls’ cries. The sound made him feel like a dog returning to prison with his leash in his mouth. What man would do such a thing?

A rock song was playing on the radio, caught between love confession and panic attack. Two more days until Christmas Eve. 

Once he’d passed by the house and greeted Bran, who was characteristically unperturbed by his appearance and announced he would be seeing him at dinner, he decided to get some groceries, since his brother seemed to live off of oatmeal and potatoes exclusively.

At the supermarket parking lot, Jon closed the car door with a  _ thump _ and walked through the snow storm towards the store. It was fucking freezing. Warmth hit him like a brick wall when he stepped inside. He felt light-headed and slightly dizzy. 

He moved through the aisles, all the while clinking the pennies in his cloak pocket, the one that didn’t have a hole. He longed to buy some whiskey, but perhaps that wasn’t the wisest way to start his visit.

The layout of the store had changed since he had moved away four years ago, and it took him some time to locate what he needed, simple stuff like bread and some vegetables for soup to bring back to the house. He added in smokes, a habit he had abandoned months ago, but the next few days would be hard enough as it was, and if he didn’t want to take up the bottle within the next hour, cigarettes were the way to go. 

He headed towards the cashier as quickly as he could, but stopped dead when he saw her standing mere metres away, comparing tubes of toothpaste. Stupefied, he took in the light blue gloves dangling by her side first, then the matching ear muffs. She could have passed for just another housewife on a trip to the store. There were still snowflakes in her long red hair.

Maybe he’d made a noise, or maybe it was creepy to have someone stop in their tracks in one’s proximity, but she turned and their eyes met.

His heart jolted dully.

He hadn’t thought it would be so soon.

The look of surprise plastered on her face, her pale blue eyes and whatever rollercoaster of expressions flashed through them, she said “Jon”, and took a step towards him before thinking better of it, clutching her own shopping basket, a ring shiny on her finger. She flushed, then paled. Oh, her skin.

He did not want to say her name even though it hung on his dry lips, sat in his throat, swirled in his head. So he did. “Good to see you. Sansa.”

She seemed to gather herself then and cleared her throat. Her eyelashes fluttered when she blinked. “Bran told me you would arrive today. Did your journey go well?”

For a moment, he only stared at her. “Yes,” he said then.

She nodded. “Find the house alright? We fixed the heating not too long ago. It was giving Bran some trouble.” They both cringed at the word  _ we _ .

Something cold and hard wrapped around his heart. “All well,” he said and, maybe too forcefully, added, “Thank you.”

She made a face. “I didn’t mean — I did not say it so you would thank me...” 

“I know.” He had started shifting his weight from one foot for the other. He wished he could just leave, walk out the door into the cold. Sit in his car with the radio on until he froze to death. Instead, he asked, “How are you, Sansa?” 

He couldn’t help that his glance slipped to the ring on her finger then.

She must have noticed, because she covered it with her other hand, still holding the two tubes of toothpaste. She let out a slow breath. “Good. You know.” Her eyes had begun to flicker around the store. The town’s watchful eyes had to be on them already. “I’d love to visit you and Bran at the house if that’s fine. Maybe this afternoon?” She swallowed. “I could call Arya and Rickon, too.”

“Sure,” Jon said. “I only just got here so —”

“Maybe tomorrow, then,” she interrupted, her cheeks red. “Of course you need time to settle in, get some rest…”

“It’s fine. If Arya and Rickon can make time. I was going to call them today anyway.”

“Great,” Sansa said, looking anything but great. Her glance fell on the toothpaste again. She shoved it back onto the shelf as if she had never intended to buy it. “I should go,” she added. Her eyes met his once more, and there was fear in them. Then she turned quickly, mouthing “bye” and leaving him standing there.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

And so their little band of orphans gathered at the old family dinner table, each in the chair they’d sat in when their parents and Robb had been alive. The more they drank, the more Jon could imagine that no time had passed, that any moment, Robb would come into the room, Theon in tow, and Catelyn would step behind Sansa to squeeze her shoulder, and father would come in, with that look on his face:  _ I’m proud of you. _

But only ghosts were left in the house and Bran, whose hands were so paper thin he might be one of them.

Sansa had somehow managed to whip up a meal of multiple courses for them. “For the occasion!”she assured them with a bright smile as she disappeared into the kitchen again and again. Jon could only stare at her tight shoulders, her elbows, the soft curls at the low of her back through the doorway.

There was much talk about his years of absence and whether he would come back now that  _ things had changed _ and the Baratheon-Lannister complex was broken and gone. As if things could ever be so linear. As if the cloud of whispers hadn’t started to materialize at his heels as soon as his car crossed city limits. As if it would ever relent. Sansa was standing with her back to the kitchen counter, a wine glass in hand, and they exchanged a quick glance before looking away.

Jon turned to his own glass of beer. If he was honest: as if he could  _ ever _ stay. Not now, not after all this time, not as long as Sansa roamed this town wearing her modest housewife dresses and her wedding ring. Not even if she didn’t.

His siblings wouldn’t have been his siblings if the topic of conversation didn’t turn to lighter realms, though, and not soon after, they dropped the topic of available houses for a bachelor in the area. It was weird how they all still figured as his siblings in his head, except Sansa. 

Instead, Arya and Rickon gave a play-by-play of a bar fight they had witnessed recently. Even Sansa loosened up and once snorted so hard that she choked on her wine and had to get some water from the kitchen. 

With the alcohol pouring freely, he even told them about an incident from one of his investigations. He’d been following a cheating husband on account of his scorned wife and lost track of him when the man suddenly flew backwards out of a ground floor window and landed painfully on the sidewalk in his underwear. Apparently, the other woman’s husband had long suspected and waited for the adulterers in the closet. In the end, Jon had to lend the humiliated man his own cloak, who also gave him a long account of his misdeeds over whiskey at a nearby bar. Easiest coins Jon ever made.

“Your life is made for the movies!” Arya commented. “How I envy you. Anything that happens in this town passes through the grapevine within an hour. No need for a private eye.”

“You’ve always liked meddling in other people’s business,” Sansa said. “It must be your dream job.”

The others laughed, but he met her eyes, and an ashen silence passed between the two of them that left the room suddenly chilly even with the hearth fire and the candle light.

“One has to survive somehow,” he said and took another swig from his glass.

Her eyes were hard as she gave a smirk. “I’ll drink to that,” she said and emptied her wine with one long gulp. 

He watched her get up and put her glass into the sink with the plates. There was a tremble in her hands now, a tremor in her movements, but maybe it was just the flickering of the lonely candle on the table. Perhaps, Jon thought, there were no ghosts in this house after all, only her. 

Rickon got up quickly and softly pushed her aside to do the dishes, still chatting with Arya and Bran. Sansa was looking out the window into the dark, where snowflakes still danced. “I should go,” she said and touched her face as if feeling her temperature. 

“Boring!” Arya exclaimed, but nobody made an attempt to stop Sansa when she excused herself and, already in her cloak, climbed up the stairs, saying she wanted to get something from the second floor.

He followed her up the steps within a few minutes. They creaked as they always had, and he remembered jumping contests with Robb and Theon and that time he had jumped from too far above and broken his foot. Father hadn’t been home, probably working at the harbor, and he had to endure Catelyn examining his foot and phoning for a car to bring him to the doctor. This had been before they had all found out the truth about his parentage, when she had treated him with a certain coldness, if not quite with the same disregard she had reserved for Theon. She had called Sansa from her room to accompany them. 

He remembered the look on Sansa’s face from up the stairs. He had been a nuisance to her back then. In complete silence, they had taken him to the doctor’s, but when his bone had to be set in place, Sansa had held his hand in hers, and he had watched how she twisted her neck to better see, transfixed in strange curiosity.

The door to their parents’ bedroom stood wide open, and he slipped inside. It was here that father had sat him down in secrecy when he was fifteen to tell him the truth. He had barely dared to eat at the kitchen table the next morning, but then Sansa had passed him little Rickon to sit on his lap because she was “out of nerves,” and Robb had told him his “ugly face” finally made sense then, if they weren’t related after all. And nothing had changed, really, not until the fire at the factory that had killed his father, Catelyn and Robb in one clean sweep.

Nobody had slept in the master bedroom since then, and Theon had left the house and never returned. It had been on Sansa and him to take care of the others.

The room was ice cold from the open balcony door, its curtains whipping furiously from the wind. Already, a small strip of white snow had formed on the doorstep.

The balcony overlooked a small courtyard. Two generations ago, servants had lived in the small quarters, but they stood dark and empty now, covered in ivy, same as the main house, and grass and bushes had overgrown where they had once played in the yard. 

Outside, Sansa was leaning against the wall, slightly sheltered from the snow. She didn’t smoke, had never, and he felt ashen enough as it was, so he left the cigarettes in his pocket for now. She looked less like a woman from a magazine here, frozen still on glossy pages. Her hair was tousled and her cheeks were red from the wine. She was the flicker of a fire, her eyes searing as they took each other in.

“So why did you come back now?” There was a rasp in her quiet voice, almost a whisper.

He wanted to say,  _ It’s Christmas _ , just to get a rise out of her. How easy it would be to coax her into a rage now, to let their bitterness play out as it would. As far as he was concerned, it could only lead down one road, and, judging by her starry eyes, she knew that as well.

“It’s been so long,” he said instead. His glance wandered down to her lips, her nervous breath escaping in white clouds.

“It has,” she agreed. After a pause, she added, “I wasn’t sure if you would ever come back.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he said as quietly as he could, but he couldn’t keep the dark rasp out of his intonation.

Her eyes flicked to his again, a pale blue flash of hurt turnt violent. “Maybe you shouldn’t have,” she said very softly.

The cold around his heart spread until he felt almost entirely made of stone and yet entirely breakable. He almost didn’t dare pose the question. “Do you mean that?”

Her eyes were so blue and so sad, he could have drowned in the icy depths of them. Her voice, barely more a whisper, broke mid-sentence. “You know I don’t.”

He stepped forward then, or maybe she did first, and they crashed together in a hungry kiss that made his stone heart beat most painfully. It was not like the kisses they had given each other before, back when he had been too ashamed to even look at her most of the time and the guilt of his longing had seeped into every fiber of his being until he hated his reflection and his awful, impure flesh. For what monster fell in love with a girl who grew up as their sister?

There were no such questions or hesitations in their kiss now, ravenous as it was, only hot breath and desperate sighs and their hands clawing at each other’s clothing. He pressed her to the wall with his entire body and kissed her neck. Her eyes fluttered, and, squeezing his shoulders until they hurt, her arms embraced him entirely to bring him closer. He couldn't think of ever having held, or been held by, someone more closely or forcefully, as if they wished they could melt into each other like candle wax.

Her coat was already open, but it had to come off and was discarded on the floor, or wherever the wind might blow it. Sansa opened the buttons of his shirt so very carefully between kisses all while her hands were grazing his chest. It made him gasp for air, but he still covered her hands in his to slow her down and said in a broken voice, “Not here.”

Nobody could see them as far as he knew, but it wasn’t right, not with their siblings downstairs and her shoulders cold despite the heat of their touch. She looked straight into his eyes and asked, “Then where?” But the kisses continued, albeit more slowly and carefully. He wished it would never end.

“I really do have to go,” she finally whispered against his skin, maybe to soften the blow. 

He hugged her harder to him again. Her hair was clouding his face, her smell making him feel absolutely out of it. “I know. I know, I know.”

But it wasn’t long until they got lost once more.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Jon lay awake almost until the morning. He didn’t dare move, for Sansa’s touch still clung to him, and he was afraid he might shake it off by accident.

So he stared out of his window into the night until the sky began to lighten, thinking of her pretty head on a pillow in another bed, red hair all over the sheets. Finally, he fell asleep.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Sansa stayed at the breakfast table once Harry had left for work and didn’t move for what felt like an eternity. Only her right index finger kept knocking on the table’s surface. Superstition? Maybe. It did help to suppress the quaking in her, or otherwise she might have thrown the cloth and all their precious china to the floor.

And then she’d have to deal with that mess.

Finally, she got up and cleaned the table and kitchen mechanically. When she passed their shelf of memorabilia next to the phone, she stopped as she did every day, staring at their wedding photo. 

In it, she wore the dress of her childhood dreams, a long white gown whimsically embroidered and with pretty laces. It fell wide from her hips, sprawling as if it had sprung from a fairytale. How thankful she had been to Aunt Lysa and her unexpected interest in her betrothal. Sansa had worn her hair down, a shade lighter then than it was now in the winter. Harry looked extremely handsome as well, with his classic smirk still untarnished by drink in the morning hours when the photo had been taken.

Inexplicably, they were looking at each other, a shared moment of escape from that hectic time. Sansa didn’t remember this. Then again, she didn’t remember most of her wedding day, only how lucky she had felt, cursed as she was.

Last night, he had questioned her (as he did), at first about the grocery bill. He was sneaky like that, then all of a sudden, he wanted to know all about her brother-not-brother returning to town. He used to catch her in his web of questions like a spider, but no longer. Now all that was left to him was to hold her arms in his tight, never violent grip so she couldn’t move and stare into her eyes as if he could read them. He knew better than to bother telling her that she should stay away from her  _ cowardly, felon _ brother, though.

In the end he’d been too tired and probably drunk to take her to bed, and she’d been too cold to his touch to awaken him, and so they had slept with their backs to each other, feet touching beneath the sheets. She had cried herself to sleep in silence, more confused than sad by what was happening to her.

It had come as no surprise to her that Jon’s return had extinguished her tepid interest in the petty games she usually played with her husband. Even under normal circumstances, they didn’t keep her engaged all day, and then she had to make up errands and wander around town so she wouldn’t do something very stupid out of boredom. She didn’t like sitting at the window like a sad dog all day, waiting for him to come home so they could play cat and mouse, but her bad moods and ill treatment of him only enticed him more, and so went the circle.

She stared at the picture for a while, then turned it around to face the wall. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

They did what any sensible adulterers in a small town would do: He called at her home when her husband was off to work, and they met at a parking lot by the edge of town in separate cars. It wasn’t how he would have wished it to happen, but they didn’t have many meeting places to choose from. 

In two days, he was going to leave town again. The clock was already ticking in the back of his head.

She was wearing sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around her head, a cute attempt at staying anonymous. They both knew that if anyone were to see them, no disguise in the world would save them. 

Jon had put blankets in his back seat. It was hardly better than the balcony of the house they had grown up in — and much less than Sansa deserved — but, meeting in secret as they were, he had accepted it as an inevitability. He would not take her to a hotel.

But when they faced each other between their cars on the abandoned lot and she took off the sunglasses and removed the scarf, the fever from yesterday’s kisses that had called for continuation was nowhere to be found. Her face quivered, then fell, and Jon scooped her up in the tightest embrace he dared. She sobbed into his shoulder, her hands dangling around his neck like a rope that could close in at any moment.

He hadn’t held her like this since the night everything had gone to hell. His knuckles had been in bandages then, bloody from the beating he gave the Baratheon boy. To this day, he could not forget the horror of searching for them at the park when Sansa hadn’t come home. Her cries had led him running through the bushes. His flashlight had found her first, with her back against a tree, her hands clawing at Joffrey Baratheon’s face as he was ripping at her dress. Two more boys stood around them, laughing, but they stopped when he pointed the shotgun at them, and then they ran towards the trees. 

He still heard himself speak to Baratheon, as if someone else: “Not you.”

He had come to himself again when he heard her call his name. Joffrey Baratheon lay unconscious on the ground, his face unrecognizable with blood and bruises already. He would think of the unmoving body later and how maybe he would never have stopped in his rage.

She had fallen into his arms then as she did now, her sobs shaking his body so much he felt that his heart might explode, and all he could do was stroke her hair and hold her.

She cried more quietly now. The years had not been kind to Sansa; they couldn’t have been. They had both known that even back then. Her trajectory had been an inevitability: to find a man who would take her, after all that had happened (or was said to have happened), to marry him and move into a new golden cage within the larger cage that was this town.

They ended up sitting in the backseat of his car with the heat and the radio on, shivering anyway. They shared a bottle she had brought until they felt less freezing. 

Sansa had wiped her black-stained eyes and cheeks and was sitting next to him stiffly as they took turns drinking. Whatever thoughts she had disappeared into, she did not say, and he left her to them. He had his own to wrestle with.

Finally, an intake of breath. “You will leave again,” she said soberly. “Will you not?”

“I will,” he confirmed. She didn’t look at him.

“Do you enjoy living in the city?”

He thought about it for a moment. “It’s another place. Different from here, but not so different.”

“I’ve thought about leaving... but it’s impossible now. I’d be left with nothing, a divorcée, and...  _ they _ ’d make sure I’d live in  _ disgrace _ .”

He allowed himself a small chuckle despite the heavy topic. “What’s so bad about a little disgrace?”

She returned his smile, nodding towards his rugged appearance and the general ambience of his dusty car. “Not everyone can pull it off in style.”

“I could show you some tricks.” He loved her dimples when she smiled, and he decided not to push the topic. One cold shower of rejection was enough. Instead, he pushed one loose lock that hung in her face back behind her ear, grazing her cheek in the process. Her lashes fluttered, and she leaned into the touch. 

Soon, she had crawled on top of him, most of their clothes in a puddle somewhere in the car. His shirt was covering the steering wheel. He thought that if they stopped kissing, he might die instantly. 

Eventually, she let herself fall backwards onto the seat and drew him over her. He stared at her body, sprawled before him, tracing the line of her hip to her stomach up towards her breasts. Impatiently, she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him down on top of her. Her eyes threatened to swallow him up entirely.

Sudden fear struck him, fear of consequences for her. “Sansa —”

Almost angrily, she squirmed beneath him. “I don’t care.”

Later, Jon watched as Sansa put her scarf and sunglasses back on like it was armor. “I’m sorry you have to do all this.”  _ All these years _ , he added in his mind.

Sansa posed as if for a photograph, her hands framing her face. Behind the sunglasses, he couldn’t see her eyes. She shrugged and let her hands fall to her sides. “It’s my life, Jon.”

He took her hands in his and squeezed them. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “Not anymore.”

He couldn’t tell for sure, but it didn’t seem that she quite believed him. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Sansa returned in time to wash herself and switch the wedding photo back around. She even made dinner and laid out their best set of cutlery, the one she had taken out to eat with during the holidays. They would go to Harry’s closest relations, the Waynwoods, as they did each year for Christmas dinner, then visit Aunt Lysa and Robin the following day. She had prepared their outfits and even picked out Harry’s favorite cufflinks, the ones he always needed her help with. Maybe that’s why they were his favorites.

Her heart was still beating in her mouth; whether from excitement or fear, she didn’t know. Her cheeks had been too rosy, so she’d made herself pale and tired-looking with powder and brushed her hair until it clung to her head like a helmet. 

Some mundane horror was crawling up her spine, but it wasn’t guilt. She felt no regret and no shame, only anger at her stuck ways and inescapable prison. Was it really inescapable? She only had to make one misstep, lift one finger, and it would topple down like a house of cards, probably on top of her.

_ It could be worse _ , she thought as she dropped the Brussels sprouts into the boiling water.  _ There could be children. _ She shuddered.

Harry was as punctual and drunk as ever, the smell drifting into her mouth when he came to the stove to kiss her. He was an excellent drunk: never stumbled, never slurred his speech, and became even more perceptive and sharp instead. More dangerous.

She’d scrubbed her teeth and tongue clean and tested her breath against her palm. Now that he was here, she stepped around him and got a bottle from the cupboard, serving them both. 

He followed her with his eyes. “You’re a rascal,” he said.

They clinked glasses and downed the golden liquid.

She served their plates and he carried them to the table where they ate in silence. As often, he was observing her, and she made a show of wielding her knife like a saber and violently stabbing the food with her fork as if it might run away otherwise. He never laughed or even smirked, but by the look on his face she knew that after finishing the meal he would take her hand and lead her up the stairs to their bedroom. 

Afterwards, she stood at the window and watched the snow fall as he smoked in bed. True sadness overcame her then. Something was ending, and there was no going back.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The next morning, Sansa made a mistake. She had managed to convince Harry in the afterglow that she would meet her siblings for a Christmas lunch (“You know I’ll be too busy for the rest of the week, and they would be  _ soo _ sad. But don’t worry, you don’t have to go...”) and return in the afternoon to get ready. She had hidden his present very well, knowing he would likely go through her things in her absence. To his credit, she had never found any of the presents he had given her for Christmas or birthdays, no matter how much she’d looked. Then again, it should come as no surprise that he was good at keeping secrets.

He was meeting some of his mates at the pub and had gone out shortly before her. As she was about to leave, her eyes fell on the wedding picture. Same as every day, a fist closed inside of her. She turned the picture towards the wall. Surely, she would come back first — and Harry would never notice anyway.

Arya and Rickon had already arrived and were working on lunch when she got there; Bran was reading a newspaper. Jon was nowhere in sight. Rickon announced they had only left the salad dressing up to Sansa, her specialty. She felt fuzzy and warm.

Jon stepped into the living room as she placed the salad bowl on the table. Their eyes met; his were grey as a storm. A wave of shivers ran up her back and arms and they shared a brief moment, barely a smile before everyone gathered at the table. 

Thank the Lord they could always rely on their siblings to be silly and entertaining. Sansa found herself laughing despite herself, louder than she had in years, probably. Her ring made a soft clink when her hand clasped the wine glass, and it went straight to her bone.

This would be her only real Christmas, the only time she was with true family and could allow her heart to open all the way. Looking from face to face, she wanted to smile and cry at the same time. For every face that was missing, there was another one present that she loved. 

And Jon. They traded shy glances across the table just as they had years ago. 

Jon, whom all her thoughts in her silent and desperate moments had turned towards for so long, all her years of sorrow turning into bitterness and resentment, when she knew it hadn’t been his fault he’d had to leave. Sansa had been seventeen when he’d had to leave. With all the responsibility and sacrifice that her parents and Robb’s death had demanded from her during the three years before that, she had barely realized that she had been almost a child herself at the time. 

But maybe, she thought now, him leaving had been the greatest sacrifice of all, the one she had paid for the most. All the times she’d closed her eyes and imagined it was him in her bed with his grey eyes, him driving the car, his keys unlocking the door in the early evening. 

It was stupid, really; she had known it all along. Before his departure, they had never done more than exchange hushed kisses and some less-than-innocent touching in secret, so all her experience in these matters had actually come from her marriage. It hadn’t taken long for her dreams to turn to Jon and the few memories she did have of him, but it had all been her imagination. Seeing him now and being with him almost seemed like a waking dream she would eventually wake up from as she had so often. 

Unless, of course, it all turned into a nightmare.

Once again, conversation returned to the topic of  _ this goddamn town _ , as they unanimously called it. They agreed there was hope for it — Joffrey Baratheon was long gone and his family legacy had been dismantled brick by brick. Sansa knew that Harry had had a hand in this, even though they never spoke of it, and there were other branches of the families formerly in power, like Jaime Lannister and Gendry Baratheon, that the remaining Starks had started putting their trust in over the years.

"You should be careful," Jon said gloomily.

It was an off-hand comment that bothered Sansa to no end. "Oh,  _ careful _ we've always been," she said sharpy. "We might have starved to death with how careful we were."

"I just mean," Jon said slowly, "that this family has been betrayed by allies before. You had to trust someone, I get it, and true friends are hard to come by."

"We did as best as we could, alone as we were," Sansa said icily.

"Gendry's alright, really," Arya commented.

"Poor guy, he's in love with you," Rickon threw in.

"That's hardly my fault." Arya smirked into her glass.

Sansa kept staring at Jon. His words didn't sit right with her. They had brushed up against a scar left by years and years of fending for herself and her siblings all by herself. How she had laid awake at night pondering whether she had made the right decision again and again. Everything seemed like a misstep, and there was no place to rest her head.

She had stopped only going a hundred miles an hour once she had been married and the others' school fees paid for by her husband. Today, they had jobs and money of their own, while she spent her days on shopping sprees and gardening. But she had always wondered about the bars of her cage, the unspoken conditions and limits of action. So far, she had amused Harry, and he sometimes amused her.

Jon, on the other hand, by sheer dumb bad luck, had been forced out of the responsibility he had taken on with her originally. Ever since, he probably hadn't relied on anyone but himself. Sansa found that she both envied and resented him. She wasn’t sure whether independence was really a worthwhile experience. 

They had barely made it through dessert when a car gave a loud honk outside. Once, twice, three times. They stopped talking and listened. It continued, and then they heard a car door open and slam shut. Noisy steps on the sidewalk, coming up to their door.

When she heard Harry shouting her name outside, Sansa stood up so quickly that her chair toppled over, hand flying to her heart. He proceeded to hammer at the door like a madman and called her again.

A jolt of coldness overtook her. Her heart had begun hammering just as hard as his fist on the door.

“What the —” Arya said. They all got up.

Sansa walked towards the entrance. “I’ll take care of this,” she said and gestured for them to stay put, which they didn’t, of course. Instead, they followed her to the front door. 

Harry was standing outside. He lowered his fist as the door swung open and she faced him. He was drunk, she noticed, though nobody else would see it. Unlike most people, alcohol made Harry sharper, though more volatile and prone to rash decision making. He also looked absolutely furious, more than she had ever seen him. It was not the quiet and controlled rage she knew.

A moment passed in which he glared at her, his breath going quickly. Then something passed over his face and he said in his soft voice, “Get in the car, Sansa.”

Arya stepped forward next to her and slung her arm around her. “What the fuck is going on?” She nodded towards him in greeting. “Harry.” 

“Hello, Arya,” he said politely. “I need to speak to your sister in private. Sansa, would you?”

It wasn’t really a question. Sansa’s heart was still racing. He had to know, that was the only explanation. Had they been seen? Had he guessed? His eyes didn’t betray his thoughts, they never did, impervious pools of icy blue they were. How many hours had she spent resisting that inquisitive stare, and how many had she spent trying to pierce it and see what lay behind?

Suddenly, his eyes left hers and looked past her, then narrowed. “Jon Snow,” he said. “In the flesh, I see.”

Arya and Sansa turned as Jon stepped forward slightly. He nodded towards Harry. “Harry Hardyng,” he returned.

Harry’s face was a mask now. “I did not think you would dare set foot in this town again,” he said.

“Christmas visit,” Jon said, as if there was nothing about it.

Whatever Harry had on his mind, he swallowed it. Without looking away from Jon, he repeated, “Sansa, wait in the car.”

It was happening, then. Whatever would happen, it happened now. 

“I’ll get my coat,” Sansa murmured and retreated into the house. Her siblings turned to watch her as she walked over to the hatrack stiffly and put on her coat, feeling for the gloves in the pockets. She turned back towards the door, catching the worried looks on their faces. “It’s okay, I promise,” she said. “I’ll call later.”

She shivered outside even with the coat and walked besides Harry towards the car. He put his hand on the small of her back, but it was more of a hover; he was barely touching her. She did not look back at the house.

In the car, he put on the heating before pulling back onto the road. How very thoughtful.

“My car,” she said as they sped off.

“We’ll get it later.”

They didn’t talk for most of the way home; they rarely spoke in the car. Usually, Sansa looked out the window and day-dreamed. That seemed hardly possible today.

When they passed the bakery, he suddenly said, “I’ve never asked you about any of what happened before we met.”

Her fingers clutched the seat.  _ Maybe you should have. _

He went on. “Never listened to the gossip.” A lie, most likely. “Never gave weight to the rumours. Never thought less of you.”

That seemed contradictory at the very least. But she remained silent and held onto her seat, her eyes fixed on the road.

She had often puzzled over what Harry truly thought of her. She must have appeared to him once as a shiny, if slightly rough diamond that had gone out of style, its market value tumbling — not yet in free fall, but gaining velocity. 

Maybe she was too hard on him (or herself, for that matter, reduced to a commodity), but she knew that, first and foremost, she was a precious piece in the collection of people indebted to him: distant uncles and cousins fallen into poverty, not-yet-useful friends, lackeys and other acquaintances. He lent a helping hand here and there, gave money, called in a favor from someone else to the point where there was no returning the favor anymore. Truthfully, she thought it almost perverse, for she knew he had no real interest in controlling these people, but he seemed entranced, keeping them close and watching as they tried and tried and stumbled and failed and got up again or didn’t. She knew, or felt, that she was his most prized possession, the most curious and cursed piece in his collection. 

There was no doubt in her mind that he must have heard all about her family history long before they met, and probably all over again in more detail after the party where they had been introduced. He knew about the fire that killed her parents and Robb, surely, and the mysterious circumstances that pointed to arson and sabotage. Equally, he had to have heard about the Incident that had almost sent Jon to prison and the Baratheon-Lannister rumour machine that had marked them both like a scarlet letter and made Jon’s rescue of her sound like a dirty lover’s spat. Nevermind that they weren’t actually related; the town certainly didn’t care for the difference. 

None of this seemed to have mattered when Harry had sat with her on a garden bench, slightly away from the crowd and the twinkling lights. He had been funny then, telling her some story about almost losing a tooth from eating pudding with almonds in it, because his mother, who had never had to lift a finger in her life before, had left the Dalmatian almonds in their shells while baking.

“Do you know who I am?” she had asked him after a little while sitting together.

“You’re Sansa Stark, of course.” 

It had been hard not to be charmed by him and harder in her particular circumstance. Even then, he’d had the icy eyes that betrayed absolutely nothing. They had made her heart race unexpectedly. He’d helped them financially without ever asking for anything in return, except, of course, her. Had she given herself willingly?

She had. 

He said nothing more now, his jaw tense. 

They pulled into their drive. “So?” she asked. “Did someone catch you up on all that gossip you missed and you remembered that you actually  _ do _ care?”

But he was out of the car and shut the door, coming around the front to hers. She had her hand on the handle but he opened it and waited for her to get out. His proximity was nerve-wracking but short-lived, for he stepped back and led her to the house. Of course he would wait to confront her indoors, in safety. He was no man to make a scene in front of their neighbors, though he had had no qualms about her siblings.

Once the door was closed behind them, he turned on her, throwing his gloves to the side. “Tell me, then. I’m asking.”

She tried to make her voice remain calm, leave out the trembling. “What are you asking?”

With nothing in his hands, he had let them fall to his sides, palms outstretched. Helpless. “The question, Sansa,” he said, as if he were speaking to a petulant child, but he couldn’t keep his voice down anymore. “What the  _ fuck _ do you think I’m asking? I want to know whether you fucked your brother. Is that too much to ask?”

Did it honor or dishonor him that the profanity sounded... tender when he used the words?

She inclined her head to the side and stared back. So he knew.

“You already know,” she said.

“I already fucking know,” he confirmed. 

She took off her gloves as well and stared at her hands. That ring. “So why did you even let me go there today?”

“Let you?” He snorted. “I couldn’t keep you from doing anything you wanted, Sansa.”

It was the alcohol, then, that had pushed him over the edge and brought him to the Starks’ doorstep. “He’s not my brother,” she whispered finally.

He took two steps towards her, too quickly. Her head shot up but he had already stopped. He was stretching his hands, as if trying not to let them curl into fists. It almost made her sneer at him. Whatever else he was, he would never.

“I could smell him on you.”

She didn’t think that she could move or say anything. Suddenly, in her mind, she was back in Jon’s car, straddling his lap, burying her face in his neck, soaking him up like an expensive perfume. No soap in the world could wash that off. Maybe bleach.

And yet Harry had gone to bed with her yesterday, bathing in that same scent. It occurred to her that he was probably the type to get aroused imagining his wife with another man even if it enraged him. Did it, even?

She said nothing. 

He started pacing, his eyes wild. He looked like he might throw a chair or hit a wall, but she knew he wouldn’t. His rage was a beast he had tamed strictly and without mercy long before they met. His behavior when he had picked her up had been an outlier, a glimpse through a door he had since shut again. She could tell she would not get another.

But then his eyes fell onto the shelf by the phone, and her heart dropped into her stomach. Very slowly, he walked over as one would over a crime scene. His hand hovered forever before he picked up the frame with the picture still facing the wall and slowly turned it in his hand.

Sansa couldn’t endure the horror she felt then, when, after an eternity of staring down at the picture, one she had never seen him pick up or look at before, he turned his head to look at her. 

True horror.

She had a vision of throwing herself at him, maybe around his neck, maybe to his feet. He might catch her still.

But instead her hand flew to her mouth as she let out a sob so hard that it might shatter her chest and ran past him up the stairs. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Jon had followed them as soon as the car had disappeared down the street. Disregarding speeding limits, he had even seen the door of their home close behind them.

His knuckles hurt from gripping the steering wheel too hard. From his experience as a private eye, he knew there were two ways this usually went, a third being the so-called passion of crime, but despite Harry Hardyng’s fit of rage at the Stark house, he doubted that would be the case. He didn’t see him as the type of man who would loudly and angrily announce his murderous rage to his victim’s family.

The more likely option was that one of them would storm out the door with a suitcase in hand, throwing their wedding ring at the door. He had seen it happen often enough, so it wasn’t based  _ purely _ on his delusional hopes and dreams, only a little.

The other way this might go was that the shouting might turn to fucking leading to eventual reconciliation. There was no doubt in Jon’s mind that her husband, and most men for that matter, would forgive Sansa  _ any _ indiscretion if she put her mind to it.

The question was what Sansa wanted. Jon had no clue. Today had made his heart flutter, butterflies in his stomach. At lunch, she’d thrown him starry-eyed glances over the table and touched his fingers when he had passed her the potatoes. He’d almost dropped them. Already, he could see them driving out of town to a hidden spot to repeat what they had done the previous day, unceremonious and uncomfortable as it was. But he couldn’t stomach asking her about her plans or even wishes anymore.

A day ago, or even an hour ago, it had seemed impossible to him that Sansa would ever leave this town, even after their encounter the day before. Sansa may deny it, but she belonged here as the town belonged to her. In her way, she had made it her own when she had risen from the ashes by securing Harry Hardyng, who was buying up and tearing down Baratheon and Lannister property left and right. And Jon had heard the gossip about her these past two days. There was worship in it. 

But if she decided to leave her husband now, there was little choice about leaving. He didn’t dare hope, but surely she had considered the possibility. In the car, she had seemed so desolate, so desperate. Life as a tame housewife must be boring her out of her mind.

Still, the brief interaction he had witnessed between them had unsettled him. It shouldn’t have. Something unspoken had passed between them then, something he could not understand. Maybe it was that he had never imagined Sansa could share a sentimental bond with another man because he didn’t want to consider the possibility. But even though he had observed many marriages in their ugliest details from up close, he knew he did not have the experience of sharing a life with someone for years and years, and he could not understand the ties that would bind them.

There were no shouts coming from the house, no slamming doors, nothing. Was this a good sign? What was a good sign? 

Then, Sansa appeared in the left upstairs window by the oak tree. Even at a distance, he could see that her face was red and puffy from crying, and she furiously dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. His heart sank. 

She was staring outside, not noticing his car at first, but then their eyes met. Her hand froze mid-movement.

He remembered the night he had left town, the one following the one he had found Baratheon and Sansa and beaten him to a pulp. He’d spent that night at the police station and been let go in the morning after his employer had posted bail. Jeor Mormont had driven him home, smoking like a madman in his car. He had told him pretty much up front that the Baratheons, Lannisters and all their lackeys would come for him, and that there was nothing he could do to protect Jon.

Things had come to a close when he had picked up Rickon from school. Men had jumped him when he wasn’t looking and dragged him to one of the empty warehouses by the harbor where nobody would hear. They had left him there later, passed out. When he had woken up, he had known that his life would be in danger whether he went to prison for what he had done to Joffrey Baratheon or not and that there was no choice for him but to leave. 

His memories of that night were patchy, but it was dark when he stood in front of Sansa’s door with his bags packed in his car and willed himself to knock. She came to the door in her nightgown with her hair in braids and gasped in horror when she saw him. With complete disregard for her white gown, she hugged him to her and stroked his bruised head and shoulders, then his ribs and stomach. His blood left red marks on the white fabric.

He’d told her of the ultimatum then, as coherently as he could. “I don’t want to leave without you,” he’d said into her hair, probably little more than a whimper. 

And when she had said nothing, he’d pulled back and looked at her with his hands on her shoulders, her beautiful face, a single tear on her cheek like a pearl. He felt the words coming like a wave. “Come with me,” he said, his heart jumping in his chest, and his head clouded with delusion. “Come with me; we can go anywhere. We can get married. We can —”

“Married?” she had echoed, and the look on her face had been so full of surprise and incredulity and  _ sadness _ that his heart leapt into a dark abyss. “Jon, I can’t. You  _ know _ I can’t. I’m — I’m seventeen, and the children…”

He had known before, and when she spoke the words it was clear as day. Of course.  _ Of course. _ He had fooled himself in that moment, blinded by her soft touch and her smell and her soothing whispers. After what had happened that day, an escape plan that involved her coming with him had been a glimpse into an entirely different life. It had seemed like a lifeline, a rope to hold on to as he fell into darkness.

More tears had welled in her eyes. “I know you can't stay,” she had whispered. “But you know that  _ I _ can't leave. They need me.” She had addressed his thoughts before he had spoken. “And where would we go, even if we took them with us? It's a road that leads nowhere.”

He stared at their entwined hands. “This town is hell,” he had said and hung his head, ashamed of his stupidity. “It will be for you as well.”

The look she gave him then was so resigned and so old as if she had looked into the future and lived through it all already. “I know.”

Jon sat in his car now and trembled at the memory. It had followed him everywhere. Finally, he had made a rash exit from her room, saying goodbye quickly to the others and going to the car without looking back. Otherwise, he might never have left. Still today, her calling his name haunted him all the time, awake or asleep.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Harry was still standing where she left him when she came down the stairs. He didn’t seem to have moved at all. His eyes followed her, step by step. When she reached the bottom, his gaze took her in entirely, her travelling outfit, hastily thrown together, the suitcase in her hand. In her pocket were the pills Arya got for her every month.

“You’re doing this,” he said with something like astonishment.

“I’m doing this,” she confirmed and, after a last moment of hesitation, stepped to the shelf where their wedding picture stood, took off her ring and placed it carefully next to the picture. Without giving it much thought, her fingers traced their faces on the glossy surface one last time before she turned away again.

He was looking at her as if he had never seen her before. She wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing. For a moment, she thought he might kiss her, push her up against the shelf or pin her against the wall in hopes that she would forget herself, as she knew men did in their final attempts to keep women they were losing. But she knew deep inside that Harry wouldn't. No, he would stand there and stare as she left. 

He surprised her, though, by walking over to their garderobe and taking his favorite scarf, woolen and dark green. He held it for a moment, weighing it in his hands thoughtfully, then walked back to her and held it out towards her.

Her hands trembled as she took it, and another tear escaped her eye. She didn’t bother wiping it away.

With her vision blurred, she whispered, “Goodbye, Harry,” and made for the door.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Jon was considering driving off when he noticed that she had disappeared from the window. Whatever was going on inside the house, it was taking too long to be a good sign, and he wasn’t going to stick around if Sansa decided to stay.

In that same moment, the front door opened and she came out with a suitcase in one hand and a scarf in the other. As she ran towards the car on light feet, a vision of bouncing hair and red cheeks, he was unable to move at first. Finally coming into motion, he got out and helped her throw the suitcase onto the backseat. Their hands wrapped around each other briefly and he felt her squeeze his frozen hands.

For a single moment, she seemed petrified looking back at the house, where Harry Hardyng stood in the doorway watching them, but then they got in the car and drove off. 

Without speaking, they both watched in the rear mirror as the house got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared from view. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

They apologized to Arya, Bran and Rickon that they wouldn’t stay for Christmas Eve. It was not a long conversation, luckily, and Jon pushed the question of when they would see each other next to the back of his mind. He knew that if he made it out of town this time, he would never return.

A few miles out of town, Jon stopped the car by the side of the road, and Sansa climbed onto his lap again to rest her cheek against his. They stayed in their silent hug for at least half an hour. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking about.

Finally, she sat up and leaned back against the steering wheel. “Oh, Jon,” she sighed with a smile that was equal parts warm and sad. “Look what I have done now. There’s no going back, is there?”

He almost laughed, but his chest felt too hollow. “I don’t really think so, no.”

Then she wound her fingers through his hair and kissed him until he saw stars. “Thank God,” she murmured against his neck, her lips trailing downwards. “Thank God, Jon. I don’t know what would have happened.”

They drove for the rest of the day and finally found shelter in a cheap and underlit hotel in a town not unlike theirs in its lacklusterness. 

Christmas Eve was spent sitting on the floor of their shabby room by the light of a single candle, both wrapped in bedsheets and nothing else. Sansa had picked a pine branch off the side of a road by a stop sign, their only decoration. Jon was almost convinced that it was not a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Say hi on [Tumblr](http://dollfacerobot.tumblr.com) if you like.


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